Montague Paske-Smith

Montague Bentley Talbot Paske-Smith (1886 – 10 January 1946) was a British diplomat who served as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Colombia from 1936 to 1941.

Early life and education

Paske-Smith was born in 1886 in Calgary, Canada, the eldest son of Rev. Edward Paske-Smith of Newton-on-Ouse. He was educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey.

Career

Paske-Smith joined the Eastern consular service as a student interpreter in Japan in 1907. From 1909 to 1910, he was acting vice-consul at Manila, and then in 1914 at Shimonoseki. He then returned to Manila where he spent six years first as acting vice-consul, then vice-consul, before he was promoted to consul-general in 1919.

He was then transferred to Japan, where he served as vice-consul in Osaka from 1919 to 1921; acting consul-general in Kobe from 1921 to 1922; and consul in Nagasaki in 1924, before he returned to Osaka in 1927. In 1930, he was acting consul-general at Manila, and then consul in Dairen in 1931; Honolulu between 1932 and 1934; and then Madrid from 1934 to 1936. In 1936, he was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Colombia at Bogota, a post he held until 1941 when he retired from the service. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1920.